In the garment industry, particularly in the field of manufacture of undergarments, especially women's undergarments, sometimes referred to as body shaping garments, such as, brassieres and figure persuasive panties, there has been a constant effort by designers to develop garments that not only provide figure enhancement, but are as well comfortable to wear, non-binding, non-chaffing, lightweight and aesthetically pleasing, preferably presenting no visible lines through the wearer's outer clothes. As well, there has been a long felt need to have garments which are easily manufactured and to the greatest extent possible reduce the production steps and incorporate the significant use of automated assembly and eliminate as many as possible of the labor-intensive and time-consuming manufacturing steps, such as sewing or stitching, which even when done using mechanized sewing machines is still nevertheless a lengthy and time consuming process.
Historically, these objectives were often incompatible. To provide shaping and contouring it was often desirable to include multiple layers of material in selected locations and with the need for multiple layers came the need for multiple sewing steps—and multiple seam lines. Moreover, the line of transition between sections separated by seam lines often presented an area of stiffness as well as an abrupt transition, which created fit and comfort problems. Even in single layer garments bordering edges have to be finished with sewn on bindings or narrow elastics and even in the latter case the stretch characteristics of the narrow elastics has not been fully compatible with the fabric it borders. Moreover, use of bordering elastics or tapes result in a thicker edging, which not only tends to press inward of the body of the wearer, it is often visible through outer clothing. As well, all of the sewing steps are time-consuming and labor-intensive, involving multiple sewing operations to assemble the garment from its cut-out parts.
In recent years, advances have been made in the development of new fabrics, including both synthetic fabrics and blends of natural and synthetic fabrics, which could be used for undergarments. These fabrics are generally softer and more supple than predecessor materials, yet are capable of providing shape and control, either alone or in combination with other materials sewn or applied to them, so as to provide adequate support and body shaping for the wearer. Many of these new fabrics have elastomeric properties providing a modulus of elasticity and others are stretchable with a significantly lesser degree of elastic recovery. There has thus resulted softer and more supple fabrics to provide a greater level of comfort and aesthetic appeal, but these also were labor intensive to make and seam lines and bordering tapes and elastics were required.
More recently, advances have been made in the use of adhesive securement of fabrics that can, in some instances provide a substitute for sewing. These adhesives include thermoplastic adhesives that are heat actuated which are capable of bonding with fabrics to form a tight chemical as well as physical bond. These thermoplastic adhesives are available in a number of forms, including as a film, web, powder, print, spray, and aerosol. However, this only provided a partial solution as only zones or sections of the garment were glued or adhesively bonded while other sections were either conventionally sewn or otherwise pieced together.
Even in instances where it has been suggested that the process of manufacturing can be better automated by the use of adhesive technology to bond fabrics, and cutting blanks from sheets or rolls of the fabric, these blanks still generally require many additional finishing steps to provide shaping and/or body constricting and/or contouring benefits, especially in brassieres.
For example, U.S. Pat. No. 5,447,462 to Smith et al, entitled “Fabric Laminate and Garments Incorporating Same”, which issued Sep. 5, 1995, and is assigned to the assignee as the present invention, describes multi-layer stretch fabrics, which are used to form discrete portions of the garment in which it is desired to provide certain control properties. Although the selective use of stretch control laminate fabrics provided a step forward, the fabric laminates of the '462 patent are intended to be used only selectively and not for the entire body of the garment. If the materials of the '462 patent were used as the principal fabric, the garment would be too constricting and/or the entire garment rather than only selected portions of a garment would have the same controlling features throughout.
Moreover, the '462 patent does not solve the problem of the discontinuity in the stretch characteristics at the boundary lines between the principal fabric of the garment and any additional fabric laminated which may be present in selected areas. Not only do the junctures produce surface irregularities, which are less than satisfactory both from the perspective of the “feel” of the garment on the wearer's skin and from an aesthetic viewpoint the discontinuities can lead to the leaving of an impression on the wearer's skin, following a pattern of the discontinuities caused by the pressure of the fabric on the skin and the differences in the height of the different fabric constituents over the fabric surface.
Still another important consideration in the manufacture of garments from multi-layered fabrics or even a single layer of material is the ability to produce a garment whose borders will not fray or unravel, even after repeated wearing and laundering. As previously referred to, this has been accomplished by the use of bindings or finishing materials, which in the case of brassieres are often narrow strips of elastomeric materials. This border elastic material provides both control and a finished edge binding. However, because the narrow elastics are of a dissimilar material to that of the principal fabric of the body of the garment and are generally thicker, there is a discontinuity of stretch characteristics and surface height to that of the main body of the garment. As a consequence, the fit, contour and stretch characteristics of the edges of the garment are less than optimally mated to the principal fabric used in the garment.
Based on the foregoing, it is evident that there is a need in the field of apparel manufacture, especially undergarment manufacture, and more particularly, women's undergarments, such as brassieres and underpants, for a fabric that will enable manufacture of a garment substantially from a fabric, which is a multi-layered fabric laminate, made from a plurality of individual fabric layers which can all be made from the same fabric or which can be made from different but compatible fabrics, and wherein the laminate fabric can be made to have any or all of a desired set of properties especially important in the fabrication of undergarments, including softness, suppleness, the ability to provide support and control, and the ability to enable fabrication of the undergarments with a minimum of or with total elimination of edge stitching and/or the use of narrow bordering materials. There is as well a need for the fabric to provide a variety of both stretchable and non-stretchable and elastomeric and non-elastomeric zones, all of which can be easily and relatively inexpensively manufactured using highly automated means and involving a minimum of labor-intensive manufacturing and assembly steps.
Accordingly, it is one object of the present invention to provide in a body shaping garment a multi-layered fabric material, composed of at least two layers of fabric, made from materials that have compatible characteristics which enable them when secured together either along their entire extent—or at least along those portions which provide the bordering areas of a finished garment to form a material which has elastomeric characteristics at least along a portion of the garment and in which at least two layers of fabric are adhered to one another by an adhesive material applied in a manner to cause adhesion of one layer of fabric to its immediately adjoining layer and which as joined provide a generally self-finished edge when the fabric is cut as a blank into a desired shape.
For efficiency in manufacture the multi-layered fabric laminate material is fabricated using adhesive material applied over the surface of adjoining layers of fabric in a manner to cause adhesion of the adjoining layers over only those selected portions of the surface areas thereof that are in communication with one another and to which adhesive material has been applied, and further so as to cause adjoining layers of fabric in other than these selected portions to remain non-adhered, but integrally a part of the laminate.
The adhesive material is preferably a thermoplastic adhesive material that is heat actuated and is adapted to be applied in a number of ways, including, but not limited to, as a film, as a powder, as a print, as a web, and as an aerosol spray deposition.
In accordance with the present invention the blank created and which is suitable for finishing as a body shaping garment is adapted to include supplemental materials such as additional panels or stiffeners, or shape-imparting materials.
In its preferred form the invention is die cut to form a blank or series of blanks for use in the manufacture of a woman's brassiere or control panty, with the resultant garment having little or no stitching and affords increased comfort to the wearer due to the absence of seam lines and surface irregularity and provide improved aesthetic appearance, with little or no outlines of the undergarment being visible through outer clothing.